Investing with Funding Circle

I started investing through Funding Circle in November 2014, by transferring £200. This meant I qualified for £2 promotional credit, as well as starting to investing in British businesses. This was a large amount of money (in my opinion, especially close to Christmas) for what could have been a massive flop.

Having forgotten about it for a few months (I transferred another £100 (the minimum) in May 2015), I had earned £7 in interest with an average return of 6.5% including any fees or bad debts. £7 isn't a lot, but bearing in mind that I'm earning 1% ROI from various savings accounts, this isn't bad at all.

The first £200 was invested across 10 loan parts automatically through Funding Circle's "Autobid" feature, where you select the loan ratings you're willing to lend to (A* - C) with A* being the lowest risk (and lowest ROI) and C being the highest risk (greatest potential ROI). I opted for a 10% stake in any loan, only bidding on loans to grade A* - B, with a requested return of 9% (average).

The system is easy to use. With Autobid on, you just let it run. I check back to make sure all the money has gone out and been accepted, then turn it off. If you don't, every time you get to £20, you'll make an offer on a loan part. Great for Funding Circle as your money is kept in the system, but not good for you if you actually want to get some earnings. For this reason, I kept Autobid turned off for my follow-up investment of £100 and selected my own bids. Both bids were rejected first time, but have now been accepted, so my total investment is £300.

Current ROI is £7.09 (£9.09 with promotional credit) with £1.01 taken off for fees. Not quite sure how the fees are calculated, but I'm still earning more than keeping all of my money in the bank. It won't replace my standard banking though, as that is guaranteed, whereas Funding Circle isn't.

The interface is easy to use, there's a mobile app (at least for iOS) so you can keep track on-the-move...not sure what else to say!

Pretty cool, not sure what will happen when I try to take money out again, but I shall cross that bridge when I get to it.

If you're interested in the statistics associated with Funding Circle, check them out here.